


Die all, die merrily

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Henry IV - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare, Henry V - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Angst and Humor, Dialogue Heavy, Everyone is Dead, Existential Angst, Existentialism, Falstaff smuggles booze into hell because of course he does, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hell Fic, Huis Clos, Jean-Paul Sartre - Freeform, John Dowland, Love/Hate, No Plot/Plotless, The Nine Worthies, Unresolved Tension, how DOES one tag a Shakespeare/Sartre crossover?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12028458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: The prompt here was "a huis clos AU with Hal, Hotspur, and Falstaff." So that is what this is. Sartre's take on psychological torture and the terrors of existence gets a Shakespearean remix.





	Die all, die merrily

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrafalgarsLaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrafalgarsLaw/gifts).



> Allow me to open with a properly medieval humility topos: I stepped in for this fic rather at the eleventh hour, so I apologize for not doing this striking idea full justice. That said, I enjoyed working on this, and hope the results are enjoyable for the requester. The voices of the characters are (consciously) something of a hybrid between their Shakespearean selves and a more laconic style drawn from Sartre. Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts...

[Scene: the interior of a stone-hewn room. On the walls are tapestries of Hector, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar. There is a hearth, with a fire lit in it. Over it, like a trophy of war, or like the Sword of Damocles, hangs a battered longsword. Around it are arranged three chairs. There are no windows. Enter HAL, followed by the BOY. Hal’s demeanor suggests that he expects cruelty, but none comes.]

Boy: Well, sir.

Hal: Here? 

Boy: Here, sir.

Hal: The chambers are… like this.

Boy: As you see, sir.

Hal: All of them?

Boy: Oh no, sir! Some they don’t suit.

Hal (with sudden savagery): And I? You have decided that I am suited to a room surrounded by the images of dead men? A man whose body was broken, felled by fate while his wife warmed his bath? A man cut down in the flower of his glory? A man stabbed by his friends? In a room too anonymous either for squalor or for ceremony? _(He waits for an answer, his breath coming hard. The BOY stares at him.)_ So be it, then. I have spent my life in rooms where I didn’t belong. 

_The BOY continues to stare at him blankly._

Hal: So be it, then. You know it’s not… it’s not as it’s imagined. The pit, the cauldrons, and the chains. The darkness of those long dead. The bitter pains of eternal death.

Boy: You get used to it, sir.

Hal: Say you so?

Boy (increasingly uneasy): I’ll leave you then, sir. _(He waits for a rejoinder from Hal; when none comes:)_ You can call if you want me.

_HAL remains silent. The BOY bobs awkwardly and departs. After he has left:_

Hal (suddenly, uncertainly): Francis?

Boy (outside): Anon, sir!

_HAL shivers visibly. Left alone, he paces. He kicks at one of the chairs, then restores it to its position. He warms himself at the fire with exaggerated care, like one trying to get damp out of his clothes. His eye is caught by the sword; still standing by the fire, he runs a hand over the blade, caressingly. After another moment, he grasps the hilt, makes as if to lift the weapon, to test its heft. At this moment the door opens. Enter HOTSPUR and the BOY. HAL whirls to face them, hands half-clenched at his sides._

Boy: You called, sir?

Hal: I? No.

Boy: Well. Here it is. Sir. _(Hotspur is silent.)_ Well, if you’ll have it so, I care not. He knows more about the tapestries than I do, anyway. 

_Exit the BOY._

Hotspur (pugnaciously): Well?

Hal: Well?

Hotspur: What will you now? What will you do to me now? And what have you done with Kate?

Hal (sharply): What have you to do with her?

Hotspur: She was my wife, damn you! What have you done with her?

Hal: You labor under some misprision.

Hotspur (mockingly): You labor under some misprision! Yes, great misprision, i’faith! Have they not sent you here to torture me?

Hal (recoiling): I am no torturer, I.

Hotspur: What would you call a man who climbed over his supporters? Who did so, and then called them traitors for opposing him, for holding their own rights as dear as he held his? What would you call such a man?

_HAL turns away to face the fireplace._

Hotspur: I can still smell the fear on you. _(Receiving no response, he sets to pacing, as Hal did on first entering. After an uncomfortably prolonged silence:)_ Can we not… get out, from time to time?

Hal (coldly): No.

Hotspur: Well, that’s… I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t to be stuck with your ugly mug for all eternity. _(He continues pacing, then:)_ What did you expect?

Hal: Hellfire. Or the embrace of God. I don’t know.

Hotspur: The embrace of God! Oh, very nice. _(HAL sits down suddenly, heavily.)_ Don’t lie; you know exactly what you expected. And then you got stuck in Hell with Harry Percy.

Hal (puts out a hand): Peace. We may yet… win through, if we can respect each other as we did in life.

Hotspur: Who says I respected you?

Hal: Well. Then hold your peace.

_Silence for some moments. HOTSPUR becomes increasingly uneasy, fidgeting and restless._

Hotspur: What do you think’s going to happen, then?

Hal: I don’t know. _(He puts his head in his hands.)_ We wait.

_HOTSPUR flings himself into a chair. Enter the BOY and FALSTAFF_

Falstaff: So this will be my lodging?

Boy: Aye, sir.

Falstaff: And who is yet expected?

Boy: No one, sir. _HOTSPUR is attending to this exchange with simulated disinterest._

Falstaff: ’Tis strange, ’tis passing strange. Methought I might here meet with friends who — _(HAL looks up.)_ Good God. You — they mean to have me, do they? They know not Jack Falstaff! He is not so easily deceived. No! _(He crosses the room with surprising rapidity.)_ I’ll know this demon. ( _Saying so, he grabs HAL’s face, as if he would tear a paper mask across.)_

Hotspur: You’ll have his eye out. And he’s ugly enough as it is.

Falstaff (suddenly releasing HAL): What have you to say to it, you… _he trails off as he recognizes HOTSPUR, who makes him an ironical flourish._

Falstaff: Ah. Yes. Ah. Jack Falstaff. We’ve met, ah, on Shrewsbury Field.

Hotspur: I’d remember. I couldn’t have missed so great a target. And you were of his company, surely; only a man serving under him could hate him that much.

Falstaff: Hate! Hate him, I? No, faith. No, I…

Hotspur: I see. You don’t hate him, you just want to tear his face off.

Hal: The boy needn’t stay, need he?

_FALSTAFF waves a dismissive hand; the BOY exits._

Hotspur: Well? What would you say, that we must be so private?

_HAL shakes his head, then:_

Hal: I wonder much that we are met together. It is as if we were to play a scene.

Falstaff: Pish!

Hotspur: I’ll dance to no man’s tune.

Falstaff: Well said, lad, that’s well said, faith.

Hal: But I have lived in the world some score of years beyond you, Percy, and yet — 

Hotspur (leaping to his feet, horrified): You did not summon me, did you?

Hal: You would not have come if I had.

_HOTSPUR, something appeased, sinks back into his chair, but continues to watch HAL warily._

Falstaff (affecting nonchalance): I wonder if there be some misprision. 

Hotspur: Misprision again!

Falstaff: That is, some error, some fault, some misdirection. Why, after all, should we be met… here? Certain it is that death comes to all men, but this? 

Hotspur: Oh, doubt it not, old man. We’re all in Hell, and needs must be each other’s fiends.

Hal: Purgatory, surely?

Hotspur: What?

Falstaff: What?

Hal: No matter. I will be no man’s torturer. We will keep silent. For my part, I’ll go pray.

Falstaff (laughs): What good will that do you now, boy? What good will it do any of us? Must Jack Falstaff be silent?

Hal (unshaken): Yes. It may do us some good yet, to examine our own souls.

_HOTSPUR rolls his eyes theatrically. FALSTAFF sighs. All lapse into silence for a time._

Falstaff (sings): Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new!  
Good pennyworths — but money cannot prove.  
I keep a fair but for the fair to view.  
A beggar may be liberal of love.  
Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true,  
The heart is true.  


Hotspur: S’blood. 

Falstaff (as one for whom an uncouth interruption is beneath his notice): Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again;  
My trifles come as treasures from my mind.  
It is a precious jewel to be plain.  
Sometimes in shell the orient'st pearl we find.  
Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain.  
Of me a grain.

( _He hums the last verse, apparently having forgotten it, but concludes:_  
Happy the heart that thinks of no removes! Of no removes.  
Falstaff: We don’t deserve to be here, you know. ( _takes out a bottle_ ) Dying in a mean bed in a tavern after an honest life, doing harm to none… it’s an injustice as is any on the face of the earth.

Hotspur: But we’re not on the face of the earth.

Falstaff (ignoring this): I’ve nothing to hide. A knight I was: of birth good, of disposition valiant. I kept men at my cost, who might otherwise have been drawn to villainy or vice.

_HAL looks up, but says nothing_

Falstaff: The better part of valor is discretion. I have sought to save my life and keep it, but I have ever been an honest man. Ever a true man, to my friends. Is there a fault in that?

Hotspur: No, in good faith!

Hal: We all have broken faith. 

Hotspur: All right. All right, then — what have you done? Tell us what you’ve done! Tell us what you have to pray over in Hell!

Hal (slowly, holding Falstaff’s gaze): I wish I knew which were my cardinal fault. Tell me, Jack, are you never tormented by your thoughts? By doubts that creep in at the corners of the mind?

Falstaff: Not I. Fain would I have a creeping doubt, rather than a roaring emptiness.

Hotspur (laughs): You hangdog curs! You whoreson hypocrites! The saintly old man and the brave young hero — both damned, damned, damned without reprieve.

Falstaff (truculently): What’s your sin, then?

_There is a silence. FALSTAFF, after a long drink, hands his bottle across to HOTSPUR._

Hal (dryly): It couldn’t be taking up treasonous arms against a king.

Hotspur (drinks): No. ( _After another pause:_ ) I was unkind to my wife. _(He drinks again.)_ That must be what has damned me, sure, though she would never… She admired me too much; can you understand that?

Falstaff: No. No one admired me. 

Hotspur: So much the better for you.

Hal: Which of us can repay a debt of love? I never could. I never did.

Falstaff (becoming maudlin): No. And I, I scolded and scorned and praised and flattered, winning and wooing men’s loyalties, that they might love none better than they loved me. They could not even love themselves. Wicked, you might say.

Hal: Then I am wicked too.

Falstaff: Oh no. You’re something else.

_ALL fall silent. After some moments, HOTSPUR rises, circling behind HAL’s chair._

Hotspur: That fat old man will be your torturer, you know.

Hal: Yes.

Hotspur: It’s him they’ll use to have you. As for me…

Hal: Oh, you’re a trap too. As I am a trap — for him and for you.

Hotspur (with sudden passion): Christ’s blood. ( _He crosses to the door and begins to pound on it with his closed fist._ ) Open up! Open up, I say! You there! Boy! Give me a Hell I can understand, you cowards! Dogs! Irons, rods, dangers, blows and groans, I care not, I care not! Gall and pinch me! Shake the earth! Wound my flesh! ( _He punctuates his commands with blows._ But take me from this place! Take me from this little room with these great hypocrites!

_The door falls open._

Boy (calls): Anon, sir!

Hal: Well? Go, then.

Hotspur: I have never yet turned coward from a fight. Nor shunned an honest reckoning. ( _A pause. The door still stands open.)_ I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect anything. Another man’s sword — your sword — and then… nothing. Food for worms.

Falstaff: Come on, Hal. We can have him out between us.

Hotspur (pursuing his own thought): Why this? Why this? At least I died as a warrior should die. On the battlefield, betrayed twice over, but I… ( _He breaks off, overcome._

Hal (very gently): Percy…

Hotspur (turning on him): You dare! I feel you yet in my bones! How dare you, how dare you, how dare you claim other men’s bodies as your right? (He is back in the room now, and the door swings shut behind him.)

_HAL gets abruptly to his feet, turning his back on the others; FALSTAFF laughs lewdly. After a moment’s silence:_

Falstaff (with false innocence): I would have expected to find _him_ here.

Hal: Be silent.

Hotspur: Oh, so our warrior-monk hasn’t always been so saintly.

Hal: Be silent!

_HAL prowls the room. FALSTAFF gestures to HOTSPUR. HOTSPUR perches on the edge of FALSTAFF’s chair and they proceed to trade swigs from the bottle._

Hal (abruptly): Are you sure you didn’t steal my death?

Hotspur: Must you always be imagining that men steal from you? You took my life.

Falstaff: He picked my pocket once.

( _The others ignore him._ )

Hal (to Percy): Is it so? Or did you in truth take mine? Should I not have been such as you were, a warrior in the marches, a soldier, a proud father’s son? Who ordained that I should wear a crown?

( _No one answers.)_

Hotspur: I died too early. I didn’t have time to perform _my_ deeds.

Falstaff: Men always die too early. Or too late.

_HOTSPUR, with a sudden motion, reaches to the sword and whirls it above his head._

Hotspur: This I will make good upon your body. No more shall you cause other men’s griefs. No more! ( _He strikes Hal between the shoulder and the neck; the latter falls. He continues to strike._

Falstaff: What do you, you whoreson madman? ( _He begins to weep, an old man’s too-easy tears._ )

Hotspur: See, the fat knight stares to see you slain, his only favorite. Lie in your blood, you rogue, and let other men have peace.

Hal (unmoving): It’s done. ( _Rising to his knees:_ ) It’s done, Percy. The world is beyond our reach now.

Falstaff: We are bound to each other forever! ( _With sudden fierceness, to Hal:_ ) You cannot be rid of me now. Not now, boy, even if you would.

Hotspur (breathing hard): Well then. Let’s on. Doomsday is near.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional author's note: when this was already under revisions, I learned that the requester (not unreasonably) wanted all the characters to be as happy as possible. This is, obviously, the opposite of that. I am sorry. For whatever it's worth, I too want Hal and Hotspur (and even Falstaff!) to be happier than it was ever given to them to be.


End file.
